Algae troubles

[Hagop J Gyurunyan]

Hello. I have a custom 33 gallon cube that’s been up for 2 months. Ive been having issues with long stringy Hair like algae. My water parameters are great. Phosphates being under 0.05 and nitrates between 5-8. I used dry sand and dry Carib sea Rock. Is this just a sign of a new tank? I’ve owned reef tanks for 10+ years and never had issues like this in the beginning.


My current livestock are 2 clownfish (Davinci and Frostbite pair) 1 bangai cardinal, a yellow clown goby, a tailspot blenny, 1 pistol shrimp, 1 skunk cleaner, 4 trochus snails, and 5 astrea snails.

 

[HotRocks]

I'm no algae expert whatsoever, but is this dinos possibly? @mcarroll

 

[mcarroll]

I have a custom 33 gallon cube that’s been up for 2 months. Ive been having issues with long stringy Hair like algae. My water parameters are great. Phosphates being under 0.05 and nitrates between 5-8. I used dry sand and dry Carib sea Rock. Is this just a sign of a new tank? I’ve owned reef tanks for 10+ years and never had issues like this in the beginning.

Started with dead rock whereas before you started with live rock.

Any signs of coraline algae, bristleworms, copepods or amphipods?

Probably too soon for light and fish due to the dead rock.

Adding corals will probably be your best form of inoculation if you can get them from the ocean, but algae is going to be hard to control on your rocks until coraline/et al takes the rock over.

In the mean time, make sure your phosphates don't hit zero.....make sure that 0.05 ppm measurement isn't already as good as zero by checking the accuracy of your test kit. Should be in the manual. If your kit's accuracy is ±0.05, then based on the algae growing your reading might be considered zero.

Can you get a sample under a microscope? (A $10-20 toy scope will work if you don't have a scope yet. $50 and up will get you a much nicer one. See: Selecting a microscope)

Also, check out these two parts of the main dino thread and see if it sounds like some/all applies to your tank: (if it does, then go read the rest of the first post on that thread.)

Common Contributing Factors
Some of the most common factors that contribute to the dino outbreaks we cover in this thread are:

• the tank being new, rock being immature or the tank being otherwise highly disturbed, such as by other harsh tank treatments
• hard core nutrient reduction tools being used, such as
  • organic carbon dosing
  • excess "bio media"
  • algae filtration
  • nutrient adsorbing media like GFO

These four factors, or excess nutrient removal generally, play – usually in combination; rarely just one factor alone – pretty directly into dino's conversion to the blooming, phagotrophic, mat forming, toxin-producing side of their nature.

• Starvation Is Their Cue
  • Dino's seem to prefer life as autotrophic epiphytes on macro algae – chaeto morpha seems to be one of their favorite types to host in. (Maybe this fact can be useful to us; maybe sometimes chaeto ought not be used, or used with special consideration)
  • For several reasons, dino's seem to be terrible at nutrient uptake. This means they are more prone to starvation than many or most other microorganisms they have to compete with.....especially bacteria, which can scavenge free nutrients down to CRAZY low levels...low enough to starve out other microbes or algae.
  • With their protective mucus mats, potential to generate wicked toxins, and ability to survive not only by way of photosynthesis and dissolved nutrients, but alternately, when times get tough, by "eating their neighbors". (The least of their tricks.)
  • Dino's generally gain a competitive edge against their competitors AND their predators in a nutrient-starved environment. Keep reading!

Ok. here's a version of a Dino testing protocol for those without microscope. I think it may be more helpful than flying blind. There's two version: first is just good for telling if you have mostly cyano or not (more helpful than it sounds). 2nd is a modified paper towel test to filter out cyano and distinguish between diatoms and dinos by the regrouping tendency of dinos.
anyway...
Test 1: Peroxide Test - dinos/diatoms don't bubble.
Do you see brown/rust/red colored strings or mats that lessen overnight and strengthen during the day? bubbles during lights on? Odds are 99% it's cyano or dinos. Here's how you can tell if it's mostly cyano...
Suck up some material. I didn't have much to work with, left is cyano, right is a few dinos in debris.

left pic: samples, center pic: cyano, right pic: detritus with Large Cell Amphidinium Dinoflagellates hiding in it. Note how those strands could be interpreted as cyano or dino mucus. Let's find out which...
Add water until you have 100mL of sample, then add 5mL of common 3% hydrogen peroxide.
The cyano starts showing bubbles at 3mL or so, but by 5mL of H2O2 it should become really clear...

All cyano strands developed lots of bubbles. Even the tiny ones. Some start floating up.

No bubble production at the site of dinos. Right pic, the brown patches are dino clumps. Only one very tiny bubble in the center of the pic.

Should be really clear where you have significant cyano present and where you don't.

2nd Test in another post....

 

[mcarroll]

(you should be able to click those little "up arrows" to link over to that thread, BTW)

 

[Lasse]

I would ad at least 10 hermits of the smaller types and more snail too. Try to have as many different species as possible of the hermits.

Sincerely Lasse

 

[sghera64]

Others have started to report a contrast like yours: They get more hair algae when starting with dry rock versus live rock.

I had an 13 year established tank free of hair algae. I bought a nice large piece of Pukani dry rock from BRS and “cured” it for 2 months in fresh water then rotations of fresh synth. Sea water. And that rock slowly became a green hair ball over 3-4 months. It slowly started to reduce after I added a few tangs, but it just kept giving like magic.

I tried a few things, but what seemed to work for me was adding macro algae (Ulva and chaeto) to my sump with a strong horticulture LED lamp from Amazon). It took about 2 more months with the tangs munching and the chaeto growing before the rock became “hairless” and covered with coraline algae. I have very few (if any left) in my CUC - - aside from my fish.

 

[mcarroll]

Others have started to report a contrast like yours: They get more hair algae when starting with dry rock versus live rock.

The funny part is that this used to be common knowledge. Or at least semi-common. I have a book from 97 that called it out – saying that using any dead rock was sure to be an algae issue.